Top FARC commander "Mono Jojoy" was killed by Colombian state forces. President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the death of the rebel leader from New York City, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly. The head of the FARC's Eastern Bloc and member of its Secretariat was killed in a massive air strike in a region called La Macarena in the central Colombian Meta department, 200 miles south of Bogota. Some 20 other guerrillas were killed and five members of the security forces...

A Mexican journalist threatened by drug gangs said Tuesday he had been granted political asylum in the United States to escape the cartels' increasingly violent campaign to silence the media. Jorge Luis Aguirre, editor of Ciudad Juarez-based online newspaper La Polaka, fled across the border to El Paso, Texas, after receiving telephone threats minutes after the murder of a fellow journalist by hitmen in November 2008. Aguirre is one of the first Mexican reporters to be granted political...

Peru should amend recently adopted presidential decrees that regulate the prosecution and trials of military and police personnel accused of committing human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today. President Alan García issued the four decrees on September 1, 2010. The decrees adopt new rules of procedure for investigations by civilian criminal courts of human rights abuses committed by military and police personnel, modify the military justice system, and regulate the use of...

The largest newspaper in Ciudad Juarez asked the border city's warring drug cartels Sunday for a truce after the killing last week of its second journalist in less than two years. In a front-page editorial, El Diario de Juarez asked the cartels what they want from the newspaper, so it can continue its work without further death, injury or intimidation of its staff. "Leaders of the different organizations that are fighting for control of Ciudad Juarez: The loss of two reporters from...

Mexico's powerful cartels have thwarted military and government crackdowns on drug-related violence and have now become so threatening, one of the country's biggest newspapers has said it will cut drug war coverage in an effort to keep journalists alive. El Diario, the largest newspaper in violence-riddled Ciudad Juarez, published a front-page editorial Sunday asking the cartels what it can and can't publish after a journalist for the publication was brutally murdered - the second slain in...

To the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the world... To the honest and supportive media outlets.. To the dignified and heroic people of Oaxaca, Liberated Land... To the men and women who are familiar with our struggle, which is your struggle, the struggle of those from below, which is created with the strength, commitment and blood of our martyrs who have given life to the rebellion that we are… To Bety and Jyri, and to his parents who have joined us from so far away and have listened...

“I am sorry, but we are no longer flying to Tehran and I do not know when the flights will resume,” would have said an official of the state-run airline Conviasa, according to the US TV station. The official who handles international departures was contacted by producers of Fox News who told her that they wanted to buy a ticket. Venezuela’s embassy in the United States has dismissed hints made by the Department of State on the nature of flights. An air agreement signed by...

A Mexican journalist had turn to the United States government for safety after he said he was kidnapped by the Chapo Guzman drug cartel. Alejandro Hernandez Pacheco works as a cameraman for Mexican T.V. network Televisa. Pacheco told authorities he, and three other people, were kidnapped in July and held for five days. Pacheco said they were tortured, beaten and starved. After his release, Pacheco now fears for his life and the safety of his family. Carlos Spector, immigration attorney,...

Titled “Polluting the Public Square: Anti-Semitic Discourse in Spain,” the report released last week points to “more public expressions and greater acceptance of virulent anti-Jewish attitudes.” The report, which was presented to Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos, focuses on recent trends in Spain, including anti-Jewish attitudes during Israel's Gaza military offensive last winter, and anti-Semitic cartoons and articles in Spain's mainstream media. In addition,...

Local police responding to a call late on Friday that a person had been executed in an industrial sector of Ciudad Juarez discovered a car full of explosives near the body, federal police said in a statement. Specialists removed most of the explosives from the car and then used a controlled explosion to eliminate any other threat, the police said. No one was injured in the operation, police said. Mexican drug gangs often target security forces in their bloody campaign to control smuggling...